Was everything in the episode scripted? Lots of humorous acts in this one and I think some of it was not scripted but simply made up by William Shatner or other actors as they acted.
I Mudd episode
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I had been thinking the same thing when the actors were fooling the robots with their "bomb".
It *had* to be improvised.
That whole thing seemed like something out of drama school, with Roger Carmel relishing every hammy bite.
I love the way he was acting like he was going to drop the bomb and then "catches" it.
It *had* to be improvised.
That whole thing seemed like something out of drama school, with Roger Carmel relishing every hammy bite.
I love the way he was acting like he was going to drop the bomb and then "catches" it.
(I wouldn't be surprised if it was scripted, but the actors made it look very natural.)
To be honest I found this one very embarrasing! The only saving grace was seeing more of Nichelle in her short outfit!
JB
JB
So, on balance, a pretty good episode.
Overall it was most likely scripted, but a few touches struck me as improv—such as when Kirk elbows Mudd at the word "enterprise." Carmel looked really startled.
How about other comedy episodes? My favorite is "A Piece of the Action." In the scene where Koik does his "takin' over da planet" speech, he smoothly takes the phasers away from Krako. Scripted?
How about other comedy episodes? My favorite is "A Piece of the Action." In the scene where Koik does his "takin' over da planet" speech, he smoothly takes the phasers away from Krako. Scripted?
Nothing like Nichelle to beef up the awesome factor.
In fact, I remember Nichelle's outfit in "Mirror, Mirror" more than the plot.
A
Amaris
Guest
I thoroughly enjoyed "I, Mudd". That was some fun Star Trek.
Star Trek comedy has only worked once (A Piece of The Action) I Mudd and Tribbles are embarassing.
Mudd being able to tell the robot version of his 'dear' wife Stella to shut up and then being surrounded by 500 of them and all of them lacking an 'off' button was a terrific payoff. Great episode? Hardly, but not an embarrassment, either. Serviceable entertainment to fill an hour time slot, which is really the goal of episodic tv.
For what it's worth, at my very first Star Trek con ever, I was part of the live-episode reenactment and that was the fourth act of I, Mudd. (I was cast as Chekov.) We were all given scripts which included, to the best of my recollection, all the dialogue of the episode as aired. I don't remember whether there was stage direction specifying things like Shatner elbowing Carmel.
Of course, that might have been a transcript based on what aired. I don't think that it broke things down to individual shots, but I'd have to dig deep into the archives to see if I still have the script (James Doohan signed it) and whether it it was plausibly a shooting script.
There's an analogy in Star Trek music for this script vs improv question. As we all know, in 1985 Varese and Label X both engaged the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to record episode scores in London, and four albums came out of it.
They got the sheet music from Paramount, played it as written, and ended up with recordings that were wonderful but different in many ways from the original soundtracks. The originals had obviously gone "off script" here and there to better fit the scenes being scored.
"I, Mudd" seems to be the least-loved of all ST scores; it's one of four scores on Label X Volume 2, on the far right. X2 is otherwise a superb album, especially if you don't have the LLL 15-CD set.
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I preferred Tribbles as at least we had The Klingons and they weren't too comedic in the episode I thought! Despite the bar fight and Dick Crockett getting in on the action as the bald klingon!
JB
JB
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